Portside

The sharing economy is growing. AirBNB is now more valuable than Hyatt. But is this an economy built on social justice values and a more sustainable, lower consumption model? Or is it a new way for Big Business to creep further into our lives and exploit our relationships with one another? One professor says about crowdsourcing: "This is a total affront to what the labor movement has struggled for for centuries."

"Workers increasingly serve businesses that do not officially 'employ' the worker — a distinction that hampers organizing, erodes labor standards and dilutes accountability," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel for the National Employment Law Project, which advocates on behalf of low-wage workers. A recent Federal Reserve study showed that nearly 7.5 million people who are working part time — contract workers included — would rather have full-time jobs.

Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to reform Newark’s schools. They got an education.

After receiving major bribes from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindall, Chiquita is abandoning Gulfport Miss. for New Orleans. This is another chapter in United Fruit/Chiquita's sorid anti-union history.

Fast food workers from around the world participated in a strike against McDonalds and other low-wage employers in an ongoing struggle to demand a living wage. Meanwhile, strikes erupted in Turkey in reaction to government inaction and possible complicity in a disastrous coal mine explosion that has left hundreds of miners dead.

Massachusetts Teachers Association delegate Barbara Madeloni elected next union president. She is known for refusing to participate in a standardized teacher-licensing program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is part of a growing teachers insurgent movement being elected across the country.

Low-income workers from 150 U.S. cities and 33 countries in protests on Thursday to call attention to wealth inequality.The protest comes amid a national push to raise the minimum wage - and it could mark a significant moment in the campaign, according to John Logan, a professor of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University.

Historian Mark Lause discusses an intriguing slice of baseball history, including the Knights of Labor influenced fight for labor rights and against the color bar in baseball. Great even for those who don't associate spring with baseball!

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis specifically said the union is willing to consider reducing benefits for those who still are working, although she emphatically ruled out changes for members who already have retired. But such compromise wont come until the city and the school board agree to contribute more to pensions each year in order to at least partially make up for a contribution shortfall that occurred during much of the past two decades.

Organizing practice and research have shown that the recruitment and development of grassroots worker leadership is key to winning organizing, contract, and political campaigns. Despite the broad endorsement of leadership-development organizing and a collection of truly inspiring leadership development stories, when asked, worker leaders consistently report varieties of leadership underdevelopment.